The Greater Need
by Poesia-Raro
Summary: After a traumatic experience involving a murder accusation and his ailing father, Sr. Inspector Rajat finds unexpected comfort in an unlikely friend.


**::/The Greater Need/::**

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A/N: First of all, let me make it perfectly clear that this is not, I repeat, NOT, intended as a romantic story! It is entirely possible for a guy and girl to be just friends (despite what you see in the movie and TV world) and that's exactly what I'm trying to show here. Think of it as a brother-sister bonding if you're still not convinced. I'm saying this again and again because I know some people who are seeing Rajat and Tarika in a wrong way just because she helped him and took care of his dad. If it had been, say, Purvi's dad, no one would say anything. Is it Rajat's fault that he happens to be a guy? Besides, virtually EVERYONE else in CID has a special friend whom they're more close to than the others. Shouldn't Rajat and Tarika have the same? So what if they're of opposite genders?

I feel particularly strongly about this issue because I myself have experienced it. I have a really close guy friend, and we're siblings in every way except biologically. In fact, we openly refer to each other as 'my bro' and 'my sis' but some of our classmates still assumed that there was something going on between us. I don't know why people insist on thinking stuff like this, but I guess that's the way of the world now. It's like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger all over again (no offence to the Harmony shippers, but she was destined to be Mrs. Hermione Ron Weasley. _Always._)

Anyway, getting back on topic, this takes place immediately after the episode "Gunahgaar CID Officer Rajat" (which is a dreadful title, by the way. As a Rajat fan, I got incredibly annoyed when I saw it.) I don't know for sure whose house Rajat's dad was in, so I'm just assuming it's Tarika's since the CID would have been keeping an eye on Rajat's house anyway.

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"That's the last we'll be seeing of _him_," Tarika declared firmly as the CID team herded the criminal, Dr. Anup, out of her house. The man, who had been threatening her with a gun less than half an hour ago, was now blubbering like an overgrown baby.

Closing the door behind them, Tarika walked back into the hall, looking around. "Rajat?" she called. There was no response, and she frowned slightly as she went in further. "Rajat, are you here?"

She found him standing at a window, staring out at the night with a faraway look in his eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought he'd gone into a trance- he was absolutely still, the only sign of movement being the occasional flicker of his eyelids. She decided it would be wiser to leave him to his thoughts, but no sooner had she thought this than he seemed to pull himself back to reality with a sudden jerk of his head. His hand twitched on the window-sill before slowly falling back to his side as he stepped away from the window.

It was only then that he appeared to realise her presence at all, for he gave a slight start when he saw her. "Oh, it's you, Dr. Tarika." He averted his gaze quickly, but not before she noticed that his eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. Her heart instantly went out to him- she knew better than anyone else what he'd been through in the past few days.

So thinking, she tried a tactic Dr. Salunkhe often used when she was feeling down. "Shall I put on some tea?"

"Please." There was a grateful tone in his voice, which was almost immediately replaced by a hesitant one. "But, uh... aren't you supposed to be meeting Abhijeet sir?"

There it was. Tarika briefly wondered exactly how much Rajat knew about the whole matter, but chose to keep her reply vague. "He can get along without me for a while." It was true- at present, Rajat needed company much more than Abhijeet did. Besides, the latter always had Daya. Rajat, on the other hand, had gotten through this pretty much on his own, even when one counted the bit of help she'd put in.

"Papa OK?" he asked her quietly as they passed the room in which his father was asleep, and she nodded. "He's going to be just fine. I'm pretty sure he'll be up and about within a couple of weeks, give or take a few days."

"Thanks for taking care of him," Rajat said in the same quiet voice. Tarika gave him a look. "If you thank me one more time, I'll put salt in your tea instead of sugar."

That made him laugh in spite of himself. It was a remarkable improvement from the anguished, desperate version of Rajat which the CID had been subjected to during the course of the case. As his face brightened considerably, he seemed, all of a sudden, much younger than his thirty-odd years.

He sat down in the hall as Tarika went into the kitchen. "How many sugars?" she called.

"Just one spoon is fine," he answered, and a few minutes later she emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of tea in hand, one of which she handed to him before sitting down. "What did ACP sir say to you? Before he left, I mean?"

Rajat stared down into his tea as though trying to see the future in it. "He said... there's no place for bonds and relations in a CID officer's life." He let out a small sigh. "Even if it's my father, the only person I can call my own in the whole wide world. But then, that's just how it is. It's who we are, isn't it?"

"Exactly," Tarika said simply. Rajat looked up to meet her gaze. His eyes were as dark as Abhijeet's, but wider and somehow softer-looking. The kind that couldn't lie even if his mouth tried to. ACP Pradyuman, who hadn't believed his surrendering story for a minute, would attest to that. "Sorry about the kidnapping thing again."

"Enough already, Rajat." She let a sharp tone enter her voice. "I know the whole story, and I understand why you had to do it. It's all over now, just... just leave it, won't you?"

"You're right." He sighed again, and took a sip of tea. "It was good of ACP sir, though. To believe me, I mean. He was the first." He shook his head. "In fact, when I gave that false confession, it was obvious he didn't believe a word of it."

"He's been dealing with truth and lies all his life," Tarika pointed out. "It's his job to know when someone's lying and when they're not."

"You've got a point there," agreed Rajat. "Though I can't say the same for Abhijeet sir. I think he'd have had no qualms about hanging me upside-down from the ceiling to find out where you were, when I first came back." There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said it, and he seemed as though he was trying very hard not to grin. Tarika could feel her face heat up, and quickly ducked her head. "Yeah, sure."

"Hey, I'm totally serious." He put down his tea mug and straightened up, grinning in earnest now. "Are you like his Achilles heel or something? You know, get a tiny paper cut on it and kaboom, he's history?"

"Nothing of the kind," Tarika replied defensively. "The position of Abhijeet's Achilles heel is- and has always been- rightfully Daya's, and I'm not about to usurp it."

"Fair enough," Rajat said, holding up his hands in defeat. "I can't argue with that. One doesn't need a love interest who'll make them cry, when they have a friend who'll put up a mourning poster for them." The witty remark earned him a cushion to the head. "I have _never once_ made him cry," Tarika informed him emphatically. "Get your facts right, Rajat."

"OK, OK, I was just kidding!" He quickly took up his tea mug again, as an added protection in case any more cushions, or God forbid, ornamental pieces, came flying at his head. "But seriously, you should have seen him. He looked ready to kill me."

"Good thing he didn't," said Tarika, taking a gulp of tea. "Say, I've been curious about something for a while..."

"Yeah?" Rajat raised his eyebrows questioningly at her over the rim of his mug.

"Why'd you stop wearing jackets all of a sudden?"

"Oh, you noticed." He let out a mirthless laugh and ran a hand absently through his hair. "I heard through the grapevine that some people, who shall remain nameless, are under the impression that I'm trying so hard to be exactly like Abhijeet sir that I'm even emulating his fashion sense."

Tarika blinked. "Um... _what?" _She shook her head, totally at a loss for words. "Rajat, that's honestly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And you actually took that nonsense to heart? Are you _insane?"_

He shrugged. "I just figured, why should I encourage them? After all, I'm my own person. I don't need to be like anyone else, nor do I want to. Not even Abhijeet sir... no offense, of course," he added quickly.

"None taken," she said with an impatient wave of the hand. "And since we're on the topic right now... just like you're your own person, so am I. But people tend to think of me almost exclusively in terms of the Abhijeet thing. It gets a bit annoying, actually, after a while. I mean, there's a lot more to me than just _that."_

"I see where you're coming from," Rajat said, nodding. "It's like living in-"

"His shadow," they both finished in unison, and exchanged rueful smiles. "You and me seem to have more in common than one might think," Tarika joked half-heartedly, and Rajat inclined his head in agreement. "Who knows, maybe you're my long-lost sister or something. We'll have to check with Papa in the morning," he chuckled. "Though after all you've done for him, he might just say yes anyway."

"I won't complain," Tarika smiled. "I always wanted a brother." She stared reminiscently off into the distance for a minute, before turning back to him. "So, did you always want to be a CID officer?"

"Yup." The reply was accompanied by a single, enthusiastic nod. "How about you? Did you always want to be a forensic doctor?"

"Well, the idea didn't really kick in until I entered high school, but yeah, I guess you could say that," Tarika replied with a non-committal shrug. "My friends thought I was crazy, but here I am."

"I never really had any friends after high school. I guess people just thought I was, I don't know, nothing particularly special." Rajat's voice was more thoughtful than regretful as he made this confession. "In fact, my best friend was my guitar. Is that sad?"

"You play the guitar?" Tarika's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"

"Well, not exactly performance-level, but yeah, a bit," he said modestly. "It was my nineteenth birthday present. I still have it at home. It's a bit rusty, though. Haven't taken it out in a while."

"You should," she admonished. "In fact, you should totally play for all of us sometime."

"No way!" Rajat objected vigorously. "Come on, Tarika, our seniors have much better things to do than sit around listening to some amateurish strumming!"

"Let them decide for themselves if it's amateurish or not," Tarika scolded him. "For heaven's sake, Rajat, quit putting yourself down. It's not healthy."

"Yes, ma'am." He bowed his head meekly, and they were both quiet for a minute, before the silence was suddenly broken by a buzzing sound. Tarika leaned forward to reach for her mobile phone, which was on the coffee table in front of her. As she had expected, it was a message from Abhijeet. She glanced sideways at Rajat, who gestured to her to go ahead. There was a hint of a smile on his face- evidently he had guessed who had sent the message.

Tarika opened the text. It wished her a good night and said that everyone hoped Rajat was all right and his father was feeling better. She conveyed the message to Rajat, whose smile increased visibly upon hearing it. It was clearly comforting to him to know that the team, despite their initial suspicion, still cared about him. She understood his feelings... she knew only too well how it was to feel like you didn't belong.

It was then that she knew what she had to do. It had always been a virtue of hers- she somehow always had the priorities sorted out. Not just hers, but those of everyone around her as well. She could tell who needed what, and at the moment, Rajat's need for a friend- a _real _friend- was greater than anything else.

Getting to her feet, she went over to the sofa and sat down beside him. "You know, Rajat, I might just understand your situation better than you know. I didn't have many friends before the CID either. And even after I joined..." she shrugged. "I've never been particularly close to anyone but Salunkhe sir. Though I can't really call him a friend either, he's more like my dad than anything else."

"Like ACP sir is to Abhijeet sir and Daya sir," Rajat supplied. "I get what you mean."

"Yeah. So, basically, I don't have any real friends."

"And neither do I." His eyebrows lifted slightly as he caught on to what she was hinting at. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Tarika smiled at him and extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Tarika. Wanna be friends?"

A real, honest-to-goodness smile lit up Rajat's face, reminding him that he was still fully capable of smiling. "Rajat. And definitely." They shook hands, and Rajat suddenly laughed. "I feel like I'm back in kindergarten!"

"Same here," Tarika quipped, grinning. "Only we're not about to start playing tag and hopscotch in the middle of the hall, I hope."

"Oh, certainly not," he snorted. "Papa would wake up, and I wouldn't dream of disturbing him. Besides, it's pretty late. I should probably get going." He drained the last of his tea and rose to his feet. "Where'd I leave my gun?" he muttered to himself, looking around, and spotted it almost immediately on top of a bookshelf. "Oh, there." He went over and took it. "Mind if I check on Papa before I leave?" he asked, and Tarika rolled her eyes at him. "He's _your _father, Rajat. Do you even have to ask?"

Quickly crossing the room, he opened his father's door a crack and peered in. Satisfying himself that the older gentleman was peacefully asleep, he shut the door as quietly as he could and came back into the hall, heading for the door. "Well, goodnight, friend," he said as he stepped out of the house. "Lock everything, you hear? The last thing we need is any more psycho murderers sneaking in."

"Will do," Tarika said obediently, and the next instant her voice took on an authoritative note. "And you don't stay up all night worrying about your dad, all right? I promise I'll take good care of him."

Rajat smiled at her over his shoulder as he went down the porch steps. "I know you will."

With that, he disappeared into the darkness, and Tarika smiled to herself as she shut and locked the door. He was right- sometimes you didn't need a love interest who'd make you cry, but a friend who'd put up a mourning poster for you. And she had no doubt that her new friend would do so... that is, when such an occasion arose.

**~THE END~**

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A/N: Before I say anything else, I'd just like to credit the main inspiration for this story.

Rajat's philosophy of the friend versus the love interest is taken from two lines of a popular song from the Tamil movie _Oru Kal Oru Kannadi_ (OKOK). The lines are translated, quite literally, into this philosophy. They may seem a little depressing, but the song is about a love failure so it's only to be expected. ;)

For those of you who haven't seen Rajat's earlier episodes, yes, he really does play the guitar. I don't remember the episode's name, but in one scene, during an investigation he was admiring a guitar that hung on the wall. Purvi asked him about it, and he told her that he played "a bit, nothing special" (his exact words). I thought it'd be interesting to slip that in here, since you need to know at least SOME things about a person before becoming his friend.

And I'm reminding you guys once again, this is in NO WAY intended as a romantic story from ANY ANGLE. The part where Rajat's teasing Tarika about Abhijeet was included mainly to reinforce this fact. Same with the part in which he wonders (as a joke, but still) if she might be his long-lost sister.

All in all, I'm really happy with the way this story's turned out, even if they seem a bit out of character (but I don't think so, because we haven't seen enough of their characters to make any real judgements). Please review and let me know what you think! :)


End file.
